I think I have finally settled on a (permanent) layout for my blog. Yay!
In other news, my little list seems to be working. Yesterday I finished packing up the clothes that don't fit Fuzz anymore. It's so good to be able to cross that one off. Her closet and drawers are much more empty (read: more organized).
I'm not sure what I'll tackle next, perhaps the suitcases.
My sister thought my interpretation of my MIL's immaturity and whining was ridiculous. She pretty much even yelled at me. "Oh, stop it, you know that's not what she meant. She just wants Stryker to still be living there."
Um yeah, that's the point.
I flew out of bed frantically searching for some pants while my heart was pounding out of my chest. I got to the front door and it was a delivery truck with our new computer desk. Holy crap.
It was 7 something in the morning. I knew they would be coming today, but the delivery was supposed to be between 9 and 5.
I'm still recovering.
And, since I'm in a fightin' mood, a little more venting about my lovely mother-in-law.
A little history: When Stryker and I first got together and I was first getting to know her, I did not like her. She was rude to me. She was brass and didn't think before she spoke. I know we all are guilty of that occasionally but believe me, she is extreme. Remember?
When she realized I wasn't going anywhere, she started to get nicer to me. I thought. Looking back, maybe I just got more used to her ways. Living thousands of miles and an ocean away also helped.
Anyway, now that I'm living closer again, I'm realizing that maybe she hasn't changed after all. Proven by this conversation with Stryker in which she pretty much declares that she wishes I was out of the picture.
MIL: Are you, Kiki, and Fuzz staying in a hotel by us the first night you're home [for R&R]?
S: No, I want to spend my first night at home.
MIL: Ugh. When you get home you should be staying here, this is your home. I forget you have a different home now, I don't like that. Ugh.
Well, since I'm already on the topic, I might as well update you.
While on my visit Sunday, Stryker's mom asked me again if I had gotten the invite yet. Again I told her no and she then informed me that I should be getting it because he sent it last week.
Why does she know this you ask? Oh, because she called him. I know she probably meant well by doing it, but it still annoys me. She missed the whole point. Even if they were to send an invite now, it doesn't matter to me. The whole point is that they forgot in the first place, and a pity invite or a "I needed to be reminded to send her one" invite sent 4 weeks after the rest of the invites doesn't fix that.
Apparently excuses ensued about how he and his fiancée had discussed it and I was supposed to be invited, but wasn't. I'm sorry, if you ask me, you're either on the guest list or you aren't. There isn't some big discussion about whether or not you invite one of your best friend's wives because he is currently in Iraq.
Remember this story about not being invited to his wedding? Well we are planning a birthday party for Fuzz while Stryker is home on R&R and I was interested in your opinion. Stryker and I have already discussed it, I'm just wondering what you think.
Got home today from running errands and found a note by the dishwasher. "Will tell [landlord] to call the plumber to fix." Then apparently he thought he needed to add this one to it: "Please don't use until the plumber fixes." Really?
I know that with all the people who checked out my post yesterday, that Loquita, Sis B, Kristen, and I can't possibly be the only ones. But that's fine, deny deny.
With that, I have only a handful of people that comment occasionally, and many more that read. So don't be shy, introduce yourselves!
I'll start... Hi, my name is Kiki, and I'm addicted to Diet Coke. Your turn...
Show of hands for whose shirt looks like this after they do the dishes. I swear mine does every time.
I love my dishwasher, and am realizing I possibly have been taking her for granted.
I would have used far less dishes to make my baked ziti last night had I known that I would be washing them all by hand. Apparently the jerk who hooked it back up after installing the flooring didn't do it correctly because all the water from the dishwasher leaks into the basement.
I of course didn't realize this until the dishwashing cycle was finished and there was an 8 foot puddle of water in the basement. Fabulous.
Well, my MIL threw another zinger at me. The last two times I have seen them, I did the traveling. It's only about 75 miles, takes me about an hour and 20 minutes to get there, but traveling with Fuzz is usually hit or miss. She either sleeps most of the way or not at all and by about the 45 minute mark decides she's had it with the car. Let's just say by the time we finally make it there, she's so mad her forehead is blotchy from the hysterics. (Yes, I stop if I need too)
Anyway, MIL told me that she was going to come here on Sunday because she needs her Fuzz fix.
I get this email from her yesterday:
Hello,
I know I said I would come and visit on Sunday, but {Stryker's half sister} left us a message that they are leaving on Monday 7/28/08 {moving out of state} so I was wondering if maybe you would be able to come this way and we could have lunch and the boy's could swim and stuff or I thought I would bring {Stryker's half sister} and the boy's with me to visit you and {Fuzz}. I know you have made multiple visits lately
so I don't know how you would feel about doing it again.. They have a Car building store at the mall like Build a Bear I thought maybe we could take them there to build a car.. Let me know what you think!
{MIL}
I guess if you'd come here with them if I don't go there, I'll just come that way because I'm sure the boys will have more fun there than they would here. I'm not sure if I'll head out right away in the morning or go to church first. I'll give you a call when I leave so you know when to expect me.
I'm slowly chipping away at my little list on the right. I have a couple started but not finished yet. I'm still working on getting this place back together after the flooring was installed and it's taking awhile because I'm using it as an opportunity to shuffle through the clutter and get rid of a bunch of stuff.
I am working on organizing Fuzz's old clothes and have nice folded piles in her room that I am sorting by size and putting in boxes. The problem is that nice folding piles happen to be very tempting to my curious one. So that process is a slow one. Yesterday I put her in her crib with some toys while I was going through them and surprisingly she played in there for about 20 minutes before she got bored and wanted out.
I'll get there, although my days are running out. (I'm not complaining!)
For this deployment, I vowed to try and live life like it wasn't on hold. In the past, I'd always felt like life was on hold while Stryker was gone, just waiting for him to resume. It made for long, sad days. So this time, especially because of Fuzz, I wanted to work on that, and so far, I've been doing a pretty good job.
Now I'm conflicted.
If life isn't on hold while Stryker is gone, and I am actually enjoying myself most of the time, what does that mean? I know it's a good thing that I don't actually need Stryker in order to live my life, but it scares me when I realize that I'm ok here without him.
It's been a long time since I wrote anything, and my mind is still jumbled. It's been a little crazy around here. Last week they put new flooring in the kitchen/bathroom, so I was a nomad from Wednesday to Friday. On Friday my mom, sister, and I (and Fuzz of course) went to the U.P. to visit family. We just got back yesterday. It was a great weekend, and imagine my excitement when I got back and saw this:
So I made a little listy-loo on the sidebar of things I want to accomplish before Stryker gets home for R&R. I will probably be adding to it as I think of new things. As of now, half of the things are unpacking related.
Yes, I moved in March.
Yes, I still haven't finished unpacking.
Before you get all judgmental, I know it's terrible. I was all about unpacking when I first moved in here, but once I had all the necessities unpacked, my motivation went out the window. There aren't that many boxes left, and I know I will feel amazing once they are unpacked.
I just get overwhelmed.
I don't want to unpack if the house is messy because I feel like cleaning the house takes priority. But once the house is cleaned, I don't want to unpack because it will make a mess. See my predicament??
I'll tell you my dirty little secret. When I unpack, it's hard to find a home for everything, so it sits around until I know I have company coming over and then I'll shove it in a closet and shut the door. Ick. There's another one for the list...
Yep, I got a job. Tomorrow is my first day.
I wasn't really planning on getting a job while Stryker is deployed. I didn't want a full time job for a few reasons.
#1 - We thought that while he is gone, Fuzz should have at least one of us around for her.
#2 - I am still breastfeeding, and at around 4 months Fuzz refused to take a bottle anymore. I know she would have learned if she didn't have options, but it made things difficult.
#3 - Finding a professional (I have a BBA in Finance) part-time job is nearly impossible, and probably wouldn't pay for day care.
But, I need to get out of the house occasionally and away from 24/7 mommy duty, and things just kind of fell into place.
My mom lost her job because they shut down the paper mill she worked for, and she's going back to school in the fall, so she's available to watch Fuzz. We went golfing a couple weeks ago at a golf course I used to work at and we were having a drink afterward. My old manager was bartending and she said that she needed waitresses. Voila, a very part-time, fun, low stress job to get me out a couple days a week. And a little extra cash is never a bad thing either.
One of the guys who stood up in our wedding is getting married at the end of August. Stryker's mom asked me last Friday if I had gotten their invitation. I had not. She lives closer to them, and it was the 4th, so I thought maybe ours would come Saturday or early this week. Nope.
Sounds kinda familiar...and unfortunately, I am the common denominator.
I am hurt. I was totally expecting to be invited, even though Stryker probably won't be here for it. He wanted to have Stryker stand up for God's sake. He's always been sweet to me. I'm confused.
Here we go, yet another "Stryker missing out" blog.
When we decided to try and have a baby, we talked it to death before we went ahead and threw out the pill. He didn't want to have to leave and have me take care of her alone, and I didn't want him to miss out on everything and then possibly resent me later for not missing everything.
In the end, we got Fuzz. I knew it was going to be terrible for him to leave once she was actually born and he was so unbelievably crazy about her. To see my husband turn to putty like that was just amazing to me.
As the deployment date quickly approached, one of my mini breakdowns was me blubbering about how sad I was that he was going to miss out on everything and how bad I felt for him. Ridiculous that my blubbering about his missing out caused him to have to comfort me, but anyway... He said "Don't worry about me, I signed up for this. I will have plenty of 'firsts' with her."
Fast forward to Sunday and it's not quite as rosy and cut and dry. Fuzz has been having a few firsts lately. First tooth, first crawl, walking around the furniture, etc. But the ones that are bothering Stryker the most are the outside summery things that we are doing. First trip to the zoo (which she hated), and first boat ride. Stryker is an outdoors kind of guy. He loves to hunt, fish, and just be outside. So these things are bothering him and it bothers me that he is sad.
Sunday was terrible. He's just been having a rough patch anyway. 4th of July is his favorite holiday and he's missing home. So when I told him she went on her first boat ride, it just kind of put him over the edge.
I felt like it turned into my fault. He didn't mention any special things he would like to be a part of her first, but when we decided to go to the zoo he said "I was just thinking of that." I told him we'd wait and he said no, it was alright, the zoo in this city is itty bitty anyway and has like deer and guinea pigs haha. When I told him we went on the boat ride he said "Ugh! Everytime I think of doing a first with her you do it. First the zoo, now the boat ride..."
My heart sunk. I told him I was sorry and he reassured me that he wants us to do fun things he's just sick of missing out. I asked him why he didn't mention that he wanted to do her first boat ride and he said that he didn't think to mention it, it was just a thought.
He felt like he was missing out, I felt like I was under attack. He wants me to do fun things with her, but he doesn't want to miss any firsts. He wants me to have family around to support me, but he doesn't want said family to be a part of the firsts if he can't. Basically any answer is the wrong one.
He wasn't being fair, but the situation isn't fair. He feels better after talking about it, and we all go through our rough patches. I just hate that he has them too.
Remember, how I mentioned my mom wanted to get a package together for Stryker and his guys?
Besides this, my grandma donated $50 to add to his phonecard. I am so incredibly blessed. What an amazing family I have. They more than came through. Wow.
UPDATE: My mom just called...she found another bag of goodies for Stryker and the guys.
I just talked to my mom. She's been at the lake since 7AM. Our family get together starts at around 2PM. But fear not, she found a good spot!
So we're talking and she says "I even brought rope in case I had to rope off our spot" Oh my God, are you serious? I'm laughing at this point and I said "I'm surprised you didn't bring a taser to keep people away." At which she responded, "no, but I have a knife...and scissors."
Just a tad territorial, wouldn't you say?
I hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend.
We will be headed to the lake with family keeping in mind all of those past and present who make this day possible.
This year my mom has decided to take up a collection to send a big package to Stryker and his buddies. I'm sure they will appreciate it!
